Biography

“Asta Nielsen is the only female artist in film who can be considered outright as a genius and whose artistic achievements have the unforced quality of natural events. Everyone who has ever enjoyed the pleasure of her friendship knows that she, like all the other real greats in the world of art, is also a significant human being whose exceptional sense of humor and deep wisdom about life are without parallel.”

That is what one of her closest friends, actor and director Paul Wegener, had to say about the Danish-born star of silent film, who elevated the genre from a carnival show to an art form and who dominated it in Germany from start to finish. Asta Nielsen proves her superior sense of humor and wisdom on every page of her exquisite memoirs, published in 1946, The Silent Muse (Den tiende Muse in the original – an untranslatable play on words).

Nielsen needed a sense of humor, too, especially during her childhood and youth, which she spent in extreme poverty. Her beloved father, who had been seriously ill her whole life, died when she was fourteen. Her energetic mother regularly lashed her and her older sister, Johanne, with a whip. Asta faithfully reports this in her autobiography but otherwise would hear nothing against her mother, who worked herself to the bone for her daughters and fought for them with the fierceness of a lioness.

Without yet knowing the facts of life, Asta became pregnant at eighteen. She refused to marry the father of her child even though she cared for him and even though single mothers at the turn of the century were almost universally despised. But Asta wanted her child all to herself. “Having a child seems incredibly important to me; but having a husband not at all so,” she found.Asta Nielsen wrote not a single word about her beloved daughter Jesta or her two marriages in her memoirs. She was an extremely private person, and bore her worldwide fame with humor but little enthusiasm.

In 1935, after 25 triumphant years in Germany, Nielsen returned to Denmark. Although she had once behaved “insolently” towards Hitler at a gala dinner (they were seated at the same table), Nazi Germany would have liked to keep her as a jewel in its firmament of stars. But Asta wasn't interested.

For late bloomers of every stripe there is no better role model than the astonishingly multi-talented Asta Nielsen: She began her literary career at 65. Danish Nobel Laureate in Literature Johannes V. Jensen wrote of her memoirs: “If you weren't a great actress, then you would have become a great author.” In fact, she continued writing – stories, articles for newspapers and, later, a series of radio lectures entitled Growing Old: A New Life. At the same time, she produced some successful work as a visual artist: “I created a new form of painting, not with brush and paint, but with colorful fabric from which I assemble people and animals, landscapes and flowers.”

She directed her first film at 86. After a film about her life did not meet with her approval, she set to work on the project herself. The result was a work of art. At the beginning of the 1960’s, 83-year-old Asta Nielsen had to come to terms with the most severe blow of her life: Her daughter Jesta committed suicide following the death of her husband.

Finally, at 88 years of age, Asta Nielsen married her third husband, Christian Theede, an art dealer 18 years her junior and the great love of her life. The two enjoyed their travels together so much that they decided to leave their fortune to a foundation to fund trips for the elderly. “It was so lovely to travel,” said Asta Nielsen, ” we want to make that possible for others now too.”

“Asta Nielsen, she is the most exquisite [actress] the screen has ever seen, her absolutely masterful portrayal and her strong, soulful depth produce the greatest artistic pleasure that film has to offer. Her artistry shakes me to the core.” Mary Wigman

“Shakespeare is reputed to have used 15,000 words. When our first dictionary of the language of gesture has been compiled with the help of cinematography, only then can the expressive treasures of Asta Nielsen be appreciated.” Bela Balázs, film theorist.